The Parish Walk

For those of you who do not know the parish walk is a 85 mile walk around the Isle of Man whish must be completed in 24hrs, and includes going to each parish church on the island. This walk can be completed in its intireity or a walker can stop at any of the stages (churches). The first main church is at Santon 10 miles into the course, the next at Rushen 19 miles in, then at Peel 32.5 miles in. Unless you are very keen (and have trained) it is unlikely that you will pass Peel, you must also be over 21yrs to do this. As well as completing the miles you must reach each stage within a time frame; the race starts at 8am and racers must pass Rushen by 1:35pm (5hrs 35mins) and pass Peel by 5pm if continuing (9hrs) or 6pm if finishing at Peel (10hrs). For more info see http://www.parishwalk.com/

part of the SUMT team at the start

Before the parish walk we had done some practice walks however the longest of these was only 15miles, so we were slightly unsure how far we would get, add into this we had just completed lifepath (see previous post). However we arrived at Rushen with about 30mins to spare feeling okay but maybe with the start of a few blisters so we decided to continue (the fact that the rest of our group were continuing had nothing to do with it). A few miles later I was beginning to regret continuing but you have very little choice by this point but to continue. The last 6/7 miles were very painful and hard going but to arrive in Peel, at the church I work at, with the rest of the team cheering us on and along with many members of my church made it worth it in the end, however I have no plans to ever walk that far again. My final time as I arrived in Peel was 9hrs and 40mins.

la la la la la lifepath!!!!

It has been an amazing week at lifepath, if slightly tiring. 485 children learning about God and prayer, 19 individual chants 10 times singing each of the two lifepath songs and countless toilet trips, flag waves and dance moves later lifepath 2011 is over.

All the hard work was worth it though to see a child sat holding a stone thinking/praying about their day, to read a post-it note that a child has written saying sorry for something they have done or asking God to fix something the the(ir) world, to watch a child sit in ore, listening intently to a man dressed as a monk or a disciple learning about faith in the past. It was such a privilege to be a part of.

Its a slightly surreal thought that lifepath is done as we have been building up to this since September and its the last big team event this year, meaning that we only have a month left before we all leave, either for the summer or permanently; therefore we need to make the most of the time we have left, lots of trips for ice-cream or paddling, many late nights talking and just enjoying the time we have left together in this house and on this island.

Bags, bags and more bags

This week the majority of my time has been taken up making hessian bags. Next week we are running a RE curriculum day for year 5's (9 and 10 year olds) from across the island, each day we will have about 100 children attending (over the week we will have just over half the island year 5's attend). They will learn about Christianity in the past (from the point of view of monks) as well as the present and about prayer, they will do this by talking to people who are in character as monks, craft activities as well as corpurt worship at the start and end of the day. In order to do this we use volunteers from all over the island who go to all different types of churches. In order for you to understand more fully here is a video from last years event

Each child that attends lifepath is given a journey bag at the start of the day, in which they place all the items they make or are give at each of the stations throughout the day. This means the 500 of these journey bags needed to be made. Most of these have been done by people outside the organisation who have amazing sewing skills and want to donate some of their time but some has been completed by yours-truly. Here is an example of a completed bag

Most of these are now finished and we are just waiting for the last ones to be returned to the house in order for them to be given out next week.

In other news we did our last practice walk before the parish walk which is next Saturday, we managed to walk about 15 miles in 3hrs 45, now if we could just walk twice as far next week I might reach my goal!

Photo Shoot

While we were out yesterday Mary commented that there are very few photographs with just her and Chris in so I decided to rectify this by doing an impromptu photo shoot. Here are the results:

I think they turned out well even if I do say so myself

The world's most dangerous road race

 For two weeks each year the Isle of Man is completely transformed from a sleepy island to a bikers paradise. They travel here from all over the world to either compete in or watch the what is known as the worlds most dangerous road race in the world, also know as the TT. The island's roads become a race course, buses don't run and roads close and the population of the island can double. So today (it being our day off) we decided to go and watch some of the races. There shouldn't have been any racing today but due to the rain yesterday the races had been postponed which worked out great for us. I tried to get some photos of the bikes but being quite new to photographing fast moving objects (they average 130 miles per hour) most turned out blurry but I did get a couple of good shots

Let's all go to the fair!!

This morning my daily devotions book has this as its meditation:


"Once Abbot Anthony was conversing with some brethen and a hunter who was after game in the forest came upon them. He saw Abbott Anthony and the brothers enjoying themselves and disapproved. Abbott Anthony said 'Put an arrow in your bow and shoot it' This he did. 'Now shoot another' said the Elder 'and another and another' then the hunter said: 'If I bend my bow all the time it will break'. The Abbott replied: 'So it is with the work of God. If we push ourselves beyond measure, the brethren will soon collapse. It is right therefore, from time to time, to relax'"

 (Above Ana and Mary on one of the rides)

So tonight we decided to relax and go to the fair that for two weeks of the year pitches up on the promenade in Douglas for the TT races. We went on rides, played games, ate candyfloss and watched a band play. Was a great night and we just had fun taking time off to relax

Ben, Mary, Chris and Myself at the fair

community day

Every so often we have a day together as a community when we spend time together not working; last Monday was one such day. After having a leisurely  breakfast together at about 10 after having a lie in, we spent the next few hours cleaning the beach outside our house for the local counsel and as it was such a nice day we had a picnic lunch on the grass outside. The afternoon was spent in a local piece of forest playing games that involved lots of paint

the evening was spent watching Angels and Demons and just hanging out and eating food. Was a great day

Rainbows